So You Think Can Put Me On Your Bad Boy List?

Pledge Drive (with One Of Each) “Christmas Rhapsody” – This is a remarkably faithful adaptation of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with rewritten Christmas-themed lyrics. The degree to which these people commit to the idea is astonishing – the recording and production is note-for-note perfect, and they pull off the lyrics with an appealing blend of humor and sincerity. (Click here to visit the Pledge Drive site.)

The Fiery Furnaces “Sullivan’s Social Slub” – Though the songs on the Fiery Furnaces’ forthcoming EP are collected from a variety of recording sessions and assorted single releases, the album (it’s 10 songs and 41 minutes long, so I’m calling it an album) is surprisingly cohesive. This is in part due to the mixing and sequencing of the record. “Here Comes The Summer” falls between “Single Again” and “Evergreen,” completing a continuous suite that was edited down to accomodate the Byzantine rules of the UK singles charts. The songs flow together more naturally than most deliberate collections of material. If you read through the lyrics, the connecting thread of this group of songs becomes obvious – they’ve gone completely bonkers with the alliteration, assonance, and puns. “Sullivan’s Social Slub” is just a list of silly alliterative names doing silly alliterative things at a silly alliterative place. “Crystal Clear” b-side “Cousin Chris” is one long tongue twister – “T’ord ta tippy top Tommy tongue-tied talked / tricked Trish tra trance which church chit-chat / Nana nots no know, so down the firehouse we go / Fireman Frank friendly fed fee-free.” Rough Trade really ought to start thinking of ways to market these Furnaces records to parents and children. I’m not kidding. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)



(I took this song down because another mp3 blog put up two more songs from this album after I posted this song this morning. I think that it is bad ettiquette for one third of an album to be on the mp3 blog circuit in one day. I’m sorry if you missed this song. It is quite good, and well worth checking out. )